Word: seidman
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...worst fear is that U.S. banks could be the next disaster. In congressional testimony last week, L. William Seidman, who chairs both the RTC and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., said the $13 billion FDIC fund that guarantees bank deposits was under "very substantial stress" because of bank failures and would probably show a loss for the third straight year. So far, 112 banks have closed their doors in 1990. That is comparable to the rate last year, when some 200 banks were shut...
...problems of many large banks suffering from sour real estate loans are closely linked to the S&L mess. Seidman noted that the thrift crisis "has clearly had an effect on real estate markets" by lowering property values and making mortgage loans harder to get. "Real estate markets," he added, "have an effect on bank results. So there is a relationship between the two. And the effect has not been good." Nonetheless, bank depositors "shouldn't withdraw their money and hide it in mattresses," says Eli Schwartz, a Lehigh University economist. "We may be having a banking crisis...
Under attack for liquidating its holdings too slowly, which increases the need for cash infusions, the RTC has begun to speed up the pace. Last week Seidman announced the details of a "fall inventory-reduction sale," in which the agency will unload shuttered thrifts and seized assets by the end of the year. Up for grabs will be everything from junk bonds to golf courses to shopping malls. The $50 billion asset sell-off will refuel the bailout process, but it will take its toll on the U.S. by depressing, to some extent, an already weak real estate market...
...Second, some decent people are working on the problem. One of them is William Seidman, the chief U.S. banking regulator, who has generally been frank and realistic in trying to handle the mess -- too frank and realistic for President Bush, who aims to replace him with William Taylor, a low-key Federal Reserve veteran. But, however long Seidman stays, thousands of other professionals are involved in the bailout. Faced with the task of recruiting staff at a fraction of the pay they'd earn in private industry (running S&Ls into the ground, say), the RTC has, sensibly, been luring...
Sorting out the assets would be hard enough if they had been in the hands of honest businessmen, but many failed thrifts were ruined by larcenous schemers who took advantage of lax S&L rules and poor supervision during most of the 1980s. Testifying before Congress last week, Seidman said criminal fraud had been discovered in 60% of the S&Ls seized by the Government during the past year, almost triple the rate in commercial bank failures. Some of the wrongdoing may even be traced to the CIA. According to the Houston Post, the intelligence agency had connections with...